The Will

by Harvey Swados

  Martin too was smiling, as if he in turn were assessing the changes in Ralph. He held his hat in his left hand and extended his right. Ralph grasped it, shook it, and allowed himself to be hauled erect.

  “Thanks,” he said. “You were kind to come on a holiday, and such a bitter day.”

  “I liked your father.” Martin’s voice was pitched considerably higher than his father’s, but was so mellow and confident that it was easy to imagine it ringing out in a classroom or court of law. “I have very pleasant memories of those hours when he and my father used to argue in the drugstore while you and I practiced fiddle. I don’t suppose you play any more.”

  Ralph shook his head. Pleasant memories, indeed; if only others could say as much.

  “My wife plays cello, so we butcher some Schubert and Haydn every once in a while … Ralph, there are a couple of reporters here who would like to talk with you for a bit.”

  Martin indicated, with a wave of his raglan-sleeved arm, two men standing discreetly to one side—the others of the cortege were already trudging back to their cars (thank God it was too cold for even the Kadin women to renew imaginary happy associations). They were, he saw, the two strangers whom he had wondered about in the funeral parlor.

  “I happen to know the older one, Jenkins of the Chronicle. I think that if you were to see them now and get it over with, you might have more peace, in the next few days. Otherwise they may keep after you.”

  “What do they want to know? What should I say?”

  “Play it by ear. I can stand by, and maybe give you a hand.”

  “All right, Martin.” Actually it was not all right; he could feel himself tensing as if, alone in a darkened hotel room, he had suddenly heard a strange alien sound. The hair of his forearms rising away from the flesh, he stood quietly and waited where he was, at his mother’s graveside, while Martin Stark summoned the two men.

  “This is Stan Jenkins of the Chronicle. And—I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.”

  “Ed Burgholzer, of the Inquirer, Mr. Stark.” This was the shorter of the two, a grinning stumpy-legged type, barrel-chested but shivering inside his overcoat. “I’m also a UPI stringer, Ralph. I can see you don’t remember me—I was a year behind you at Warren G. Harding High.”

  “You do look a little familiar. But why should you be interested in my father’s funeral?”

  “It’s not just the funeral. You’ve been out of town a good ten years, it must be. Maybe you don’t realize what a character your uncle was—the dog, the rent collecting, the junk collecting, the whole bit.”

  “My uncle was an eccentric. You know what an eccentric is? A nut with some money. But I don’t see what that’s got to do with my father.”

  Burgholzer had the grace to look embarrassed. His companion looked nothing more than bleak. Barely opening his long jaws, as if words cost money, Jenkins mumbled, like a true miser, “Your father lived with him. Rumors tend to collect.”

  “Such as?”

  Braced by the cold and the moment’s respite, Burgholzer bounced back. “Collections of precious stones, see? Jewelry and Liberty Bonds. Even illegal bullion.”

  “What crap! You yourself said my uncle was a junk collector. Well, that’s what he left—junk. My father never had a dime. He simply lived with his brother—in the junk. Is that what your readers want to know?”

  Jenkins looked sad, almost wounded. “We’ve checked out every bank in the city, including branches. Not one Land safe deposit box.”

  “I’ve never had one either. How about you?”

  “It was your uncle that made money, not us.” Burgholzer beat gloved hands together. “You can’t do much on a Guild salary. But you can if you got all those rents coming in. Care to comment?”

  Ralph saw that Jenkins, on his other side, was scribbling on a memo pad. He said carefully, “I was told that Max Land bought two things with his rental income—junk and more rental properties. The junk is crammed into the house and the store. The real estate is scattered around the Thirteenth Ward. For all I know he went into hock to the banks to buy it.”

  Martin Stark had been walking along behind the three of them, stepping delicately with his left foot on tiptoe, as always, on the path that led back to the parking lot. He said casually, “There won’t be any great mystery about the property holdings. I believe I have some of the title deeds in my office safe. No doubt the others will turn up in the house.”

  “Got any idea, in dollar figures, what the estate will add up to?”

  “Not the faintest. How could anyone guess, least of all Ralph Land, who hasn’t even been home in ten years?”

  Dr. Stark’s shark on wheels came into view as they rounded the last turn, its long-toothed grille bared to bite into the cypress sentinels before which Ralph had parked it. It seemed to him that he had never been so glad to see a dark untenanted automobile; once he had regained it he would be free. Not even the most eager beaver could poke and prod indefinitely for information with his claws freezing. Meanwhile, though, Burgholzer persisted.

  “Max Land’s will left everything to your father. That’s another reason we’re here today. Now that your father’s passed on, who are the heirs to the estate?”

  “How can I know, without having seen his will?”

  “When are you going to see it?”

  “When I find it. If I do.”

  Jenkins remarked sadly, “Eccentric people do eccentric things. Suppose there isn’t any will?”

  “Mr. Stark is the lawyer, not me.”

  Martin said, the words coming from his mouth in short bursts of vapor, “If Leo Land died intestate, which we doubt, the estate would be divided among his direct descendants.”

  “And where are they? That’s the question!” Burgholzer cried happily. “For your uncle’s funeral, Ralph, except for your father, only collateral relatives turned up. Where were the boys? That’s what I asked your father, see? But he was upset, he didn’t want to talk. I said, I knew Ralph in high school, I hear he’s in New York, but what about—”

  “I wish you hadn’t gone after him. You didn’t make his last days any happier.”

  “Did you?” demanded Jenkins lugubriously.

  Ralph lurched toward him, but Burgholzer put out an arm.

  “No offense, Ralph. A job’s a job. Here we are, and—”

  “And here is our car.” Martin Stark took the keys from Ralph’s fist. “Let’s not freeze to death. You’ll be able to get in touch with Ralph again.”

  “Where?” Burgholzer leaned in through the open window as Ralph slumped into the front seat. “Are you going to stay in your uncle’s house, Ralph? Going to hunt for the will there?”

  Dry-mouthed, Ralph nodded. The icy wind had risen off the lake once again; above them the dry cypresses swayed, shook and moaned hungrily, badly nourished by his mother’s bone and marrow.

  “If nobody else turns up, you’ll get the biggest bite, right? You and Uncle Sam? If I was you I wouldn’t look too hard for the will. Or for my brothers.”

  Ralph forced his lips open. “Leave me alone.”

  “Maybe you’re in touch with Mel and Ray already? Then why didn’t they come back for the funeral? Can we say there’s bad blood?”

  Martin Stark had the motor coughing, then running, and began to back slowly out of the lot, leaving the two men, tall and small, stomping beside their dented and rusty Volkswagen. Jenkins, more the cemetery gatekeeper than the reporter, raised his arm gravely.

  “See you again.”

  Ralph closed his window. The vicious air had struck him on the forehead, and as he raised his hand to his brow he encountered great beads of sweat which had detached themselves from his scalp and were coursing down toward his eyes. Hastily he pulled out his handkerchief and dried his face.

  “I think you could use a drink.” Martin was very calm. “My home isn’t far, but I imagine you’d rather not meet anybody else.”

  “If you don’t mind …”

  “We’ll fin
d a quiet bar. Everybody’s nursing hangovers today.”

  Neither spoke until they had parked once again and were seated in a dark corner with bourbon in their hands. Ralph drank deeply. His legs trembled still from the funeral and its aftermath. Dr. Stark himself would have been cooler, for all his seventy-odd years.

  “I’m sorry about those guys, Ralph. I didn’t think they’d be so rough. We should have discussed beforehand what to say about Mel and Raymond.”

  Martin Stark was cleverer than this, Ralph thought; then why had he allowed the reporters to sandbag him? Was it to give him a taste of what was in store for him? He said, “They won’t be the only ones. How much do the Kadin women know?”

  “I suppose you mean about Raymond.”

  “Let’s start with him.”

  Martin smiled slightly, a lawyer’s smile. Whose side was he on? His father was old enough to be disinterested; besides, it was his father, not Martin, who had been Leo Land’s friend and companion, and who mourned him now. But the son had axes to grind, all lawyers did.

  “They know of course,” Martin said slowly, between sips, “that Raymond is in the house.”

  “But the reporters didn’t find that out from them.”

  “They’re ashamed to talk. I’m afraid your cousins have mixed feelings. No doubt they hope for a share of the estate. At the same time they’re terrified of the publicity. You can imagine how they’d feel if Mel were to turn up.”

  And how about me, Ralph wanted to demand, how do you think I’d feel? Or was Martin deviously indicating that he knew the real basis for the kinship between himself and the overstuffed bourgeois sisters?

  “First thing, though,” Martin was saying, “is to get Raymond out of that firetrap. Obviously he can’t stay there alone, any more than you can keep people from knowing about him—and Mel. Then the will must be found and probated. Of course, you’re going to have to take in stride a whole series of unpleasant experiences, like the one you just had with the reporters.”

  “What’s my alternative?”

  “To clear out—today—and wash your hands of the whole thing. The house, the property, the probate, Raymond. I understand that you’ve been trying to do just that for years, but you never have gone all the way, have you?”

  “No man can cut his ties all the way, not even Ray. What was I supposed to do, disappear? Change my name?”

  “Mel did.” Martin’s eyebrows came together, as though it pained him to point this out. Actually, he was probably enjoying himself, which was even more infuriating.

  “He was a bum!” Ralph cried out. “Are you comparing me to that traitor? He had no option, he had the cops after him.”

  “I’m only saying that neither of you ever came home after you’d both left. As far as most people in this town were concerned, all three of the Land boys had disappeared, until you showed up this morning. They’re not going to distinguish among your various motives.”

  “What do I care? I know why I stayed away. Wouldn’t you have done the same, if you’d been me?”

  “When you appeal to one other person, you appeal to the total community. Didn’t you just recognize that Raymond’s isolation is impossible?”

  “All right, supposing I don’t clear out. Can I see the will through and settle the estate without having Mel come into it?”

  “Just as with Raymond, it’s only a matter time until the reporters track him down. He’s in the pen now, isn’t he?”

  He said this as coolly as his father would have said, He’s got cancer now, doesn’t he? Were all professional men so cold-blooded, or were these two simply determined to retaliate for his having moved in on their closed stewardship of the Lands’ affairs?

  Without looking up from his glass, Ralph muttered, “He’s doing three to five for breaking and entering, under another name. That’s the last I heard.”

  “With luck we could settle everything before he gets out. On the other hand, if he’s mentioned in your father’s will, it might be impossible to do it quietly.”

  Ralph raised his head. “The bastard doesn’t deserve a penny.”

  “That may be. But offhand I’d say that the only thing that could keep him from profiting as a legatee would be evidence that he had contributed to his father’s death.”

  “He contributed to his mother’s death, isn’t that enough? And I’ll never forgive him for it.”

  “I understand. Nevertheless, you may as well face it: if your father died intestate, Mel would have a very good claim to a third. And if it should turn out that there is a will and that he hasn’t been mentioned, he could contest.”

  “I’ll take my chances.”

  “I don’t blame you.” Martin Stark had been stuffing his pipe. Now he lit it and drew on it, remarking between puffs, “The prize … is worth it.”

  Your father thinks so too, Ralph was on the point of saying; but the old man had not implied by this—as his son might be intending to—that Ralph had come back simply to feather his nest.

  He said sharply, “I didn’t know that when I came home.”

  “So my father observed.” There was nothing objectionable in the words themselves, or even in the tone. Perhaps it was just the affectionate way in which Martin caressed the shank of his brier pipe, with its handsomely embossed sterling silver band, that quickened Ralph’s mistrust. When Martin inquired, “Another round?” he declined.

  The older man insisted nevertheless on chauffeuring him all the way back across the fringes of town to the crumbling mansion where his young brother awaited him. The housing development had come to life, the spectral gray-blue eyes of the TV glowed through the picture windows, children were crying out mutual farewells before tossing aside the ropes of their Christmas-present sleds and going in to supper, eggnog guests were departing as storm doors sighed shut and motors coughed into action, even the Happy Valley delicatessen in the shopping plaza had opened for an evening’s business. Only the Land house, forty feet higher than anything else in sight, brooded darkly from its wintry battlements on the domestic scene beyond its black and looming shadow.

  “You’d swear there was nobody inside,” Ralph said uneasily.

  “I understand Raymond has blackout curtains in the attic.”

  “And my father actually helped him crawl up there.” Ralph could not keep the bitterness from his voice. He twisted open the door and began to haul out his valises.

  “Your father wanted him to be happy. The only way he could think of was to give him what he wanted. After all, Raymond gave your father what he wanted.”

  “And what was that?”

  “He didn’t leave home.”

  “The more fool he.” Ralph slammed the car door behind him.

  In some alarm, Martin called out, “I didn’t mean it that way.”

  Ralph came around to the driver’s side and extended his hand. “Neither did I. Thanks again, Martin.”

  But Martin was reluctant to let him go before he had made himself clear. Still holding Ralph’s hand in a farewell clasp, he said, peering out into the darkening sky, “I think it was more your Uncle Max than it was your father who got what he wanted from Raymond. It’s true that he didn’t understand Raymond. Who does? But he loved to dominate, and he felt that in his own way he was taking care of Raymond, especially after you older ones had left.”

  “But he never cared for me anyway. I wouldn’t humor him with his collecting mania.”

  “Yes, Mel was really his favorite, even though he was supposedly disappointed in him,” Martin said ruminatively, releasing his hand. “Even your father was surprised that Max didn’t specify Mel in his will. That’s why I wouldn’t bet that your father has left Mel out of his own will.”

  “Good night,” Ralph said then, picking up his bags and heading for the dark immense porch.

  “Ring me up,” Martin called after him, “as soon as you find anything.”

  Ray was waiting behind the door to unbolt it; he must have heard the car come up the driveway.


  “It’s all over,” Ralph said heavily, dropping the bags in the front hall. “Papa is buried, next to Uncle Max and Mama. Now our troubles begin.”

  “Don’t feel that way, Ralphie.” Still in his carpet slippers, his eyes red as though he had been weeping alone, Ray stepped forward and placed his hand on Ralph’s forearm. Once again Ralph was astonished at the strength in the boy’s finger tips, steely as a concert pianist’s. “We’ll stick together, and we’ll make out.”

  Ralph laughed shortly. “That’s hot stuff.”

  He shucked off his storm coat, threw it on the valises, and turned to face his brother. “I’m ready to get to work. I don’t want to spend my whole life looking for Papa’s will. How about putting some lights on?”

  “If they saw me … Some of the neighborhood kids might start throwing rocks. Sasha’s too old to keep them away. They’re nice enough kids, but all kids take advantage, and if they—”

  Ralph strode into the living room and clambered over the bundles of newspapers and magazines stacked atop the couches to get at the blinds. “I’ll draw the curtains. But this hiding will have to stop.”

  “All right. Here’s the bulb. But you haven’t eaten, and we have to fix up a place for you to sleep.”

  Ralph considered. “You could go with me to the delicatessen for a bite. It’s opened again.”

  “I thought I might make us an omelet. And you could start clearing one of the upstairs bedrooms. I’ll give you a hand as soon as I have the food ready.”

  “That sounds like progress. I’ll start now. Which bedroom?”

  “There are four on the second floor, and two on the third floor, but those are impossible, they’re full of circus posters and Ann Sheridan, and no beds anyway. Papa’s and Uncle Max’s rooms are in reasonably good order. Papa’s is at the head of the stairs, Uncle Max’s was the one to the left of it, beyond the bath. If you’d prefer one of the others, one has birdcages and beauty shop equipment—”

  “Never mind.” Ralph was already mounting the broad, curving staircase, which was now a repository for bottles of all kinds—a case of siphon dispensers, empty gallon jugs of bleach and cider, beer bottles both large and small, family-size Cokes, a Canadian stone ginger-beer mug, a liter of vin rose, liquid shampoo and vinegar bottles, and others unrecognizable beneath layers of grease and soot.